Evergreen rockers and barbershop quartet perform at Henley Living Advent Calendar

A CULTURAL mashup of old-school Americana and Nepali fare took centre stage on day 16 of the Henley Living Advent Calendar.

Cracking Up, a four-piece rock band, struck up with Wilko Johnson and Roger Daltrey’s blues-inflected Going Back Home, complemented by guitarist-vocalist Rob Ounsley’s impassioned harmonica into the microphone.  

Laughs were heard from both the performers and audience at the Eyot Centre on Friday night over a “finger caught in the string” mishap midway. 

The band’s rendition of Nick Lowe’s Cracking Up, their namesake, featured rousing vocal harmonies and bassist-vocalist Tony Travis’ shuffling and spinning. 

The next song, The Trammps’ Hold Back the Night, showcased the talents of the band’s self-appointed “noise-maker” and vocalist Pete Gregory on an aqua blue drum kit, appropriately dressed to disrupt in a “Santa’s favourite drummer” tee and black “bah humbug” Santa hat. 

Ounsley’s harmonica once again made its way into Santana’s Smooth, during which caterer-sponsor the Happy Gurkha interspersed in the crowd offering fiery Nepalese aloo tikki and samosas. 

The festive spirit culminated in the Christmas classic Jona Lewie’s Stop The Cavalry. Undeterred by the lack of a brass section, all four band members paid homage to Lewie’s original arrangement with a round of kazoos, on which Travis added: “We’ve been practicing [the kazoo] for ages!” 

The band concluded their set with J. J. Cale’s Call Me the Breeze and The Eagles’ Already Gone in time for the raffle, promising additional songs if the crowd “had enough energy” afterwards. 

Guitarist-vocalist Mike Rowbottom said afterwards: “I have played the Living Advent Calendar about five times now – this might be my sixth, actually – and I think it is a fabulous community event. You get to see other people you don’t normally see around town.” 

He added: “Nobody knows what’s going to happen, but they come anyway and hopefully we get them to stay.”

The event was in aid of the River & Rowing Museum, which is currently closed for refurbishment and will reopen in May next year.   

Yesterday (Saturday) an all-female barbershop quartet performed at Henley Cricket Club.

The Tonyx, a Berkshire-based quartet, performed “a mix of Christmas and non-festive songs inside the pavilion.

They glided between festive spirit with renditions of Johnny Marks’ Holly Jolly Christmas in doo-wop style, Christina Rossetti’s In The Bleak Midwinter, and Felix Bernard and Richard Bernhard Smith’s Winter Wonderland, as well as the unseasonal, with Elbow’s One Day Like This and Irving Berlin’s Cheek to Cheek.

The performance was interspersed with opportunities for flashcard-aided audience participation. 

As per barbershop musical tradition, the group had coordinated their swing dresses in an array of gem hues, completing their conspicuously festive look with fluffy white cardigans.  

Comprised of Louise Johnson (baritone), Holly Stothard (bass), Helen Marlow and Ali Kinch (both lead/tenor interchangeably), all four parts blended into one another in perfect synchrony with all the visual expressiveness required for the barbershop sound. 

Ms Marlow was also able to contribute her own a cappella arrangement of the traditional carol Silent Night due to the lyrics and melody being in the public domain. 

The quartet finished with The Chordettes’ version of Mr Santa (Mr. Sandman) before swiftly returning for an encore, this time donning straw boater hats and paying homage to their musical origins with Les Applegate’s barbershop staple Goodbye, My Coney Island Baby. 

The event was sponsored by Nicola (Baker) Taylor of Nicola Baker Bakes with fundraising going towards Wyfold Riding for the Disabled.